The Winter Wedding

by A. C. Arthur

  “Shower,” he told her when she immediately reached for the Under Armour t-shirt he wore under his hoodie.

  “Great idea,” she replied.

  In what seemed like record time Logan and Cheyna were naked and stepping into the small space of the shower stall in her not-too-much-bigger bathroom. Logan stood with his back receiving the brunt of the hot spray of water, his arms wrapped around Cheyna’s body.

  “I’m staying with you, here, tonight.” His face was just inches from hers as Cheyna eased her arms up and around his neck.

  “Ok.”

  He lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist.

  “You’re spending Thanksgiving with me and my family.”

  Cheyna opened her mouth to reply but Logan leaned in, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth. He touched his tongue to hers and deepened the kiss. Her back was pressed against the glass encasement of the shower, her ankles crossed at his waist, palms flat on the back of his head. One of his hands slid down further until his fingers slipped beneath the crease of her ass and down more to ease into her quaking center.

  Her legs flexed around him as she tilted her head to take more of his heated kiss. Her hands held his head tightly to hers not wanting to break the contact or to end the delicious sensations ripping through her at the moment.

  “Say yes,” he murmured after pulling back slightly from the kiss. “Say yes, you’ll stay with me and celebrate with me this week.”

  He now had two fingers moving in and out of her. The sweet friction had her thighs trembling, need pulsating quick and hot through her blood. Cheyna tilted her head back until it tapped the glass while she bucked against his fingers’ clever ministrations.

  When she was sucking her lower lip beneath her teeth Logan eased his fingers out of her and replaced them with his long hard length.

  “Say yes,” he implored. “I need to hear you say it, Cheyna. Say yes.”

  He pulled out and pushed in. Once, twice and on the third time Cheyna gasped with the sheer magnitude of pleasure and passion soaring through her at this moment.

  “Yes!” The one word was loud and reverberated throughout the bathroom. “Yes. Yes.”

  Logan kissed her neck as he thrust into her deeper and faster. Cheyna held onto him, loving the feel of the heat from the water, the warmth from his tongue dragging along the skin of her neck and once again her lips, and the sweet and satisfying build of an intense climax that only this man had ever given her.

  Thanksgiving Day

  Steph slapped a card onto his forehead and did an awful rendition of the Cabbage Patch dance while sitting in a chair at the dining room table.

  “You are so extra!” Cassie chimed. She selected a card from the ones she held and placed it on top of the deck in the center of the table.

  “Really. You don’t have to gloat every time you’re close to winning,” Maxie added.

  By the time everyone had taken their turn it was back to Steph. “Booyah! I’m out. And yes, I have to do this every time I win!”

  Steph pushed the chair back and stood. He continued the Cabbage Patch dance and then did the Moonwalk until he was further away from the table. At that point he did a series of moves that Logan was sure there was no name for, all in the very limited amount of rhythm that his brother possessed. Everybody at the table laughed, including Cheyna.

  She wore black jeans and a pink sweater. Her hair was held back with a black headband and her face was make-up free. Well, not totally. Earlier today, before they’d left her apartment, he’d sat on the edge of Cheyna’s bed watching her as she pulled out a huge make-up bag. When he’d asked why women felt the need to apply make-up every single day she admitted that she didn’t really like the ritual, but mostly wore make-up when going to the office or an event. She’d considered dinner with his family an event. Logan considered it going home, so he’d asked that she not wear any make-up. She’d compromised by applying only eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss. He would have been happy to walk into his mother’s house with her wearing a fully made up face. But arriving with her in all her natural beauty had endeared her to him even more. With each day that Logan spent with her he found himself admiring her more and more. She was brave and tenacious and cared much more than she wanted anyone to think.

  Each day after work Logan listened to her talk about her day, about the antics of Sarah and Evan in the office and how she was certain that she could run the company without them, but that it wouldn’t be as easy, or as fun. While she always rationalized that they were good co-workers, from the sound of her voice each time she spoke of them, Logan knew their relationship was much more than that. Cheyna cared about them and she cherished the bond they’d been able to forge. That was why admitting that she’d entertained the idea of Evan being the one leaving her those roses had been hard for her. It had not been hard for Logan to give Sam Evan’s name and request he look into the guy’s background. Despite how nice Evan and Sarah seemed and how, for the moment, he had no choice but to trust that Cheyna was safe during the time she was in her office with them, Logan was not leaving anything to chance. He wanted to find the person harassing her before anyone else was hurt.

  “She’s a lovely woman.” Joanna touched Logan’s shoulder and moved past him into the kitchen.

  After dinner and dessert the card game had begun and Logan had been drafted to help his mother with the dishes. Now that the task was done, he’d been standing in the doorway leading from the kitchen into the dining room, watching the card game that he’d been banned from playing. His siblings knew they were no match for him when it came to playing Uno. He turned back and followed his mother into the kitchen.

  “I think so too.”

  “Mmmhmm. I can tell.”

  Logan leaned against the counter and watched as his mother put another glass into the dishwasher. “How so?”

  Joanna closed the door to the machine and folded her arms over her chest as she leaned against the counter too. “Because you brought her here.”

  “And I’ve never brought a woman home to you before.” Logan should have noticed that significance before.

  To an extent he had. Asking Cheyna to join him for Thanksgiving had come as much from him wanting to protect her by keeping her close to him at all times, as it did from the fact that he knew there was something different about her. A difference that went far beyond the general, such as her personality—Logan usually preferred his women less argumentative—and leaned more towards the way every time he could see her doubting what was happening between them, it pushed him to work harder to ease those doubts right out of her mind. He wanted to be even better when he was with her, stronger, smarter, whatever it was that she needed, Logan wanted to be. That was the biggest difference of all.

  “I really like her.” He hadn’t admitted that out loud to anyone. Not even Perry and Steph when they’d cornered him in the living room five minutes after Logan and Cheyna had walked through the front door.

  “I can tell that too by the way you look at her.”

  Logan should have realized his mother would have been paying close attention. Joanna always knew everything about her children, most times before her children had figured it out for themselves.

  “You’re attentive to her every need, but not in an overpowering way. You have respect and admiration for her. I could hear it when you talked about the wedding you two are working on together.”

  “She’s working on the wedding. I’m working on the branding. It’s just a mutual client.”

  “One who managed to bring the two of you together.” Joanna nodded. “It’s good to see you trusting yourself with someone else. I wondered how long it would take you.”

  “I never wanted this.” Another admission. “I was content with just sleeping with women here and there. You know, quenching the basic thirst.”

  Joanna just smiled. She’d always promoted a very open relationship between her and her children. She wanted her sons to feel as if they could come to her w
ith questions about sex and women, just as her daughters debated the right type of sexual protection to use. One of Joanna’s favorite sayings to her children was that there was nothing they could not tell her. And because he’d been raised that way, Logan felt no reservations whenever he was around her.

  “That was called growing up,” Joanna told him. “You’re allowed a few years to do that as long as you’re still respecting women and their feelings as you go along.”

  “Always,” he told her. “But with Cheyna I feel like there’s so much more than respect.”

  Joanna leaned over so that her shoulder bumped Logan’s. “That’s how it starts.”

  He didn’t have to ask what she was talking about because Logan knew. He’d known for the past couple of days but he hadn’t thought he was ready to actually acknowledge it. He’d known Cheyna for a month. Some would call what he was feeling lust at first sight. They would doubt that his feelings that had seemingly come on quickly, could be sincere. He wondered if Cheyna would think that, because really, she was the only person whose feelings mattered in this regard.

  “A word of advice from a woman who has had her share of love and heartbreak and issues in between,” Joanna started. “Be gentle with her. Moreso than you would have with any of your other women. I don’t know the details but I can tell she’s had a rough time trusting people. I hope we’ve managed to make her feel at home today, but every now and then she looks around like she can’t believe she’s here or she can’t trust that we’re all exactly as we seem.”

  Logan folded his arms over his chest and sighed. “I know. Her parents abandoned her when she was born. She was in the foster care system until she was eighteen. I think she expected to be alone for the rest of her life. Like she believes that’s what she deserves. But she’s wrong. She deserves so much more.”

  “Like I said, be gentle with her, Logan. Fear of loving and hoping to be loved, rejection, disappointment, all of that is a reality for people dealing with abandonment.”

  “Is that why you fell in love with Michael so soon after Dad left? Because he was gentle with you?” Logan had no idea where that question came from. He hadn’t even thought it was an issue he still grappled with, but it was out now and from the look on his mother’s face, she’d been expecting it.

  “Your father could be a cruel and unjust man. He could curse you out in a way that made you feel like shit beneath the heel of his boot. And then, he could hold one of you boys in his arms and look at you with nothing but unfettered love and adoration. He could sing like Smokey Robinson.” Her eyes lit up as she said those last words and she did a little rock back and forth as if she were listening to a Smokey song right now.

  “But I couldn’t live on that rollercoaster anymore. I couldn’t accept the good with all the ugly that he also liked to project. There wasn’t enough love in my heart for him to allow that to happen. I loved me and my sons too much and I didn’t want you to grow up believing that’s how a real relationship looked.”

  Logan was three years old when he watched his father load suitcases and boxes into the back of his pick-up truck. He saw Vincent Williams two times after that. Three months later when Joanna invited Vincent to spend a couple hours with his sons on Christmas Day, Vincent’s sister showed up instead, with the announcement that her brother had moved to Houston to open a used car dealership. Joanna met and married Michael Palmer one year later.

  “Michael showed you a real relationship.” He spoke the words that he’d known to be true.

  Michael Palmer had been a good man. He’d come in and been the best step-father any boy could ask for, while also helping Joanna to raise the two little girls they’d made together. He was fair and could be stern when required to raise three rambunctious boys in Brooklyn. But he’d also respected when he wasn’t enough for Logan. All of his family had accepted that and Logan was forever grateful for all they did to get through that time.

  “He was good. And so are you. If this woman has managed to break through that shield you’ve put up around your heart for your personal reasons, then I believe she’s good too.”

  “She’s the best.” It was the truest admission Logan had ever made.

  “Then tell her. Make her happy. Hold her when she’s sad. And be your very best for her every day that you’re together. That’s how you love a woman, Logan.”

  He turned to her and wrapped her in a huge hug. “I know that you’ve been the only woman I’ve ever had to know how to love, Mama. For so very long it’s been only you.”

  Joanna accepted her son’s hug, rubbing his back the same way she used to when he was a little boy and had given her the rare glimpse of his emotions.

  “You have a big heart, Logan. There’s room for you to love another woman. That’s what I want for you and your brothers and sisters, to find love and happiness.”

  Like she had. Joanna didn’t say the words, but she didn’t have to. He knew his mother had known happiness. She’d also known pain and sorrow but she’d overcome, just like Cheyna. He vowed in that moment to spend the rest of his life making sure these two women never suffered again.

  Chapter 12

  One Week Later

  Cheyna stepped out of her car and pressed the button on her keychain to activate the new security system she’d had installed a couple of weeks ago. The mall parking lot was packed with holiday shoppers so she’d had to park a good walk from the entrance. She’d been feeling very strong and exuberant in the past weeks so she didn’t mind the walk. That feeling she attributed to Logan and the workouts they shared on Saturday or Sunday mornings. They’d, of course, jogged in the brisk morning air again despite her request for indoor only workouts, but Logan had made them fun with his antics and jokes along the way.

  Today, Cheyna had to bail on workout time with Logan due to a scheduled shopping trip she already had with Sarah and Evan. It had been a while since she’d done anything with them outside of work and after feeling a small measure of guilt for accusing Evan of terrorizing her—even if only in her mind—Cheyna had felt too guilty to cancel. Logan had only put up minor resistance to her going to the mall to meet Sarah and Evan alone. Cheyna’s argument to his concern was that she’d agreed to the GPS locating device being added to her car in addition to the security system. This meant that if anyone other than her attempted to access the doors, trunk, hood or even the tires of her vehicle an alarm would sound and that alarm was linked to a computer in the offices of D&D Investigations. She’d worried about the system because if someone so much as bumped into the car it was going to go off. Thin security strips that resembled normal car decorations were actually DNA activated so that touches to specific areas of the vehicle that did not match Cheyna’s DNA would constitute a violation. In addition, she had her cell phone with her that also had a GPS. The bottom line was that between the car and her phone, Cheyna’s location could be pinpointed from anywhere in the mall, to inside the bathroom at her apartment where she sometimes had to charge her phone because there was a shortage of working electrical outlets at her place.

  Then there were the thousands of people Cheyna was certain would be at the outlet mall. While Black Friday had been last weekend, the holiday shopping season was in full swing. She walked through the main doors of the mall and headed to the coffee shop where she was scheduled to meet Sarah and Evan at noon. It was a little past the hour when she finally spotted Sarah sitting at a table outside of the shop with her drink in hand.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late.” Cheyna pushed the crossbody purse she carried to the side and unzipped her jacket before sitting in the seat across from Sarah.

  “Oh, no worries. I’ve been sitting here enjoying my latte and the view. Never knew so many hunky guys shopped this early. Means somebody will be getting great gifts if they’re getting a head start.” Sarah took another sip and admired the next guy walking solo.

  “Where’s Evan? Is he running late too?” If there was one thing Evan liked, in addition to sweet potato pie—he’d eate
n every slice that Logan’s mother had given Cheyna to take to the office after Thanksgiving—it was shopping.

  Sarah finished her drink and drummed her fingers on the table. “No. He ditched us for another woman.”

  “What?” Cheyna didn’t even try to hide her surprise.

  Sarah laughed. “I thought the same thing when he called to tell me. But no, it’s business. Some lady he met that’s interested in booking one of his fashion shows.”

  Evan was a master at coordinating shows that resembled an event at any of the infamous Fashion Weeks. He was a style guru with an eye for precision and presentation. That made him an invaluable asset at Prestige but Cheyna always encouraged him to continue with his personal endeavors.

  “Oh. That’s great. I’m glad he’s getting some traction in that area.” And she was sorry that he wasn’t there today. She’d already planned to buy him the first piece of clothing he picked up as a silent apology.

  “Yeah.” Sarah stood. “Let’s get started. We’ve already missed a lot of doorbuster sales and I have a long list of gifts to buy.”

  Cheyna stood with her. “I think my Christmas gift shopping list may have grown this year too. Is your family getting together for dinner?”

  “Christmas Eve,” Sarah stated as they walked away from the table outside the coffee shop and into the mall traffic. “My cousin got engaged and now my aunt wants all of us there to celebrate. I haven’t seen either of them in years.”

  “But it’s family. I’m sure you’ll have a great reunion with them.” They passed a men’s clothing store and Cheyna thought about what she would buy Logan for Christmas. This would only be her third year having to buy gifts at all. The first time had been four months after she’d opened Prestige and bought holiday gifts for Sarah and Evan.

  “No.” Sarah’s voice sounded so serious Cheyna glanced over at her. “You do not know my family. They are loud and old-fashioned and things will get very serious in a matter of minutes.”